Archaeology of Fashion Film
Lead Research Organisation:
University of the Arts London
Department Name: Central Saint Martin's College
Abstract
This research project is the first to systematically investigate the hidden history of fashion film in the silent era between 1900 and 1929, and its legacy for the rapidly changing field of fashion communications today, both in the UK and globally. It posits fashion film as a unique hybrid of two industries with distinct practices, resources, and motivations. Its interdisciplinary approach provides a new historical and theoretical framework for understanding this important and increasingly popular phenomenon. To that end, the project brings together scholars with combined expertise in film history, fashion history and media studies, and practitioners involved in various aspects of contemporary fashion film production.
The study of fashion film has been neglected in both film and fashion histories, and in the fashion industry it is often assumed to be a novel product of the digital age. The project redresses this by conducting extensive archival and filmographic research into fashion film of the silent era, and by subjecting these findings to a comparison with the practices of emergent digital fashion film in the early 21st century - another period of rapid technological and cultural change. We use 'media archaeology' as an innovative, non-linear method of connecting these two periods. Although not historically proximate, each period acts as a critical prism for understanding the other. More broadly, we will also investigate the potential of media archaeology approaches to 'rewire' established fashion history methodologies and to inform contemporary fashion practice.
Emphasising for the first time the transformative effects of film on fashion in both periods, the project forges a new understanding of film as a 'fashion medium' and as a 'fashion object'. It will make a major contribution to scholarly studies of the history of fashion, of film, and of fashion film, and will change how contemporary fashion filmmakers and other media practitioners understand the history of their discipline and the context for their own creative and commercial work.
The project team is based at Central Saint Martins, University of the Arts London, and Winchester School of Art, University of Southampton. The project's methods span fashion history and theory, fashion in film studies and media archaeology. The specialist art school environment is a singularly appropriate milieu for this project because its research activities regularly combine historical and theoretical research with art and design practice. The team will work closely in partnership with AnOther.com (an influential online magazine owned by Dazed Media, a leading UK-based international media platform with a focus on culture, fashion and lifestyle), the British Film Institute (the UK's foremost body for the collection, preservation, exhibition and promotion of film and the moving image), the British Fashion Council (the national organisation for the promotion of British fashion design and media in a global market), Somerset House (a major arts and cultural centre based in London) and Moravska Galerie Brno (a major national arts museum in the Czech Republic) to ensure a broad range of outputs and impacts, and wide dissemination. The outputs include: workshops, a showcase on a contemporary media platform, a conference, an international touring exhibition of historical fashion film at Somerset House and Moravska Galerie, Brno, public-facing screenings and discussion events, and several publications: a monograph accompanying the exhibition, a book documenting the conversations between academics and media industry practitioners, and a special issue of the Journal of Visual Culture.
The study of fashion film has been neglected in both film and fashion histories, and in the fashion industry it is often assumed to be a novel product of the digital age. The project redresses this by conducting extensive archival and filmographic research into fashion film of the silent era, and by subjecting these findings to a comparison with the practices of emergent digital fashion film in the early 21st century - another period of rapid technological and cultural change. We use 'media archaeology' as an innovative, non-linear method of connecting these two periods. Although not historically proximate, each period acts as a critical prism for understanding the other. More broadly, we will also investigate the potential of media archaeology approaches to 'rewire' established fashion history methodologies and to inform contemporary fashion practice.
Emphasising for the first time the transformative effects of film on fashion in both periods, the project forges a new understanding of film as a 'fashion medium' and as a 'fashion object'. It will make a major contribution to scholarly studies of the history of fashion, of film, and of fashion film, and will change how contemporary fashion filmmakers and other media practitioners understand the history of their discipline and the context for their own creative and commercial work.
The project team is based at Central Saint Martins, University of the Arts London, and Winchester School of Art, University of Southampton. The project's methods span fashion history and theory, fashion in film studies and media archaeology. The specialist art school environment is a singularly appropriate milieu for this project because its research activities regularly combine historical and theoretical research with art and design practice. The team will work closely in partnership with AnOther.com (an influential online magazine owned by Dazed Media, a leading UK-based international media platform with a focus on culture, fashion and lifestyle), the British Film Institute (the UK's foremost body for the collection, preservation, exhibition and promotion of film and the moving image), the British Fashion Council (the national organisation for the promotion of British fashion design and media in a global market), Somerset House (a major arts and cultural centre based in London) and Moravska Galerie Brno (a major national arts museum in the Czech Republic) to ensure a broad range of outputs and impacts, and wide dissemination. The outputs include: workshops, a showcase on a contemporary media platform, a conference, an international touring exhibition of historical fashion film at Somerset House and Moravska Galerie, Brno, public-facing screenings and discussion events, and several publications: a monograph accompanying the exhibition, a book documenting the conversations between academics and media industry practitioners, and a special issue of the Journal of Visual Culture.
Planned Impact
The project will impact upon the following: 1. the fashion industry, especially the field of fashion communications; 2. film archives and film and fashion educators; and 3. the general public.
1. The fashion industry, including its media, will benefit from the way in which this research reveals the important roles film played in fashion prior to the digital era. Contemporary fashion image-makers and commissioners have generally had little exposure to the historical precedents of this form, and often regard contemporary fashion filmmaking practices as 'new' or 'ground-breaking'. As well as lacking a historical dimension, the emerging debate about the transformative effect of film on fashion is too often conducted between fashion insiders, with little contribution from experts and scholars in film and media. Our research will provide a critical corrective, opening a new dialogue with the fashion industry that includes fashion, film and media scholars.
Our industry and institutional partners are included in the research process in order to test and ground the relevance and potential impact of the project. A new sub-sector of the fashion industry has recently developed in the online fashion publishing and retail sectors, resulting in the professional appointments of film editors and curators. There is a new need within the industry to pool a combination of specialist knowledges from fashion and fashion image-making on the one hand, and filmmaking on the other. Through the exhibition, publications, website, collaborative workshops and public talks, our research will generate a new debate about how the fashion and film industries have interacted historically, and how fashion film has served the needs of both.
Our analysis of the filming, staging and choreographic techniques of historical fashion film will provide a resource for visual research for contemporary fashion image-makers. Fashion brands are increasingly embracing a range of non-fashion media and cultural projects in a quest to construct an 'overall brand vision' with a strong identity, and film has played a vital role in this. Our project will highlight that this kind of interaction has a history going back to the early 20th century.
2. The research will also impact on the practice of film archivists, and consequently researchers and educators who utilise archives. As a documentary and largely anonymous form of filmmaking, fashion film is often low priority in archival digitisation projects. Yet digitisation is key to preservation, access and dissemination. Our research will raise awareness of the importance of fashion film as a historical source and of its visual appeal. We will also share our contextual research with the BFI and other key international film collections, thereby enhancing the searchability and consequent accessibility of hitherto marginalised collections.
3. For public impact, the project draws on Uhlirova's previous experience of creating impact through the international Fashion in Film Festivals she inaugurated in 2006, and her contacts with prestigious partners, including Yale University and New York's Museum of the Moving Image. The touring exhibition, illustrated scholarly publications, public talks and panels, website and social media will generate increased public awareness of the fashion film in the context of the histories of 20th century fashion, cinema and media, contributing to a change in current public perceptions of the form as 'new'.
The project will also change perceptions of fashion exhibitions, in which film has traditionally been used merely to augment the exhibited objects, serving a documentary or supporting function. The exhibition will redress this by putting film centre stage. It will thus highlight film's historical importance in displaying fashion, and reframe it as a major cultural artefact in its own right.
1. The fashion industry, including its media, will benefit from the way in which this research reveals the important roles film played in fashion prior to the digital era. Contemporary fashion image-makers and commissioners have generally had little exposure to the historical precedents of this form, and often regard contemporary fashion filmmaking practices as 'new' or 'ground-breaking'. As well as lacking a historical dimension, the emerging debate about the transformative effect of film on fashion is too often conducted between fashion insiders, with little contribution from experts and scholars in film and media. Our research will provide a critical corrective, opening a new dialogue with the fashion industry that includes fashion, film and media scholars.
Our industry and institutional partners are included in the research process in order to test and ground the relevance and potential impact of the project. A new sub-sector of the fashion industry has recently developed in the online fashion publishing and retail sectors, resulting in the professional appointments of film editors and curators. There is a new need within the industry to pool a combination of specialist knowledges from fashion and fashion image-making on the one hand, and filmmaking on the other. Through the exhibition, publications, website, collaborative workshops and public talks, our research will generate a new debate about how the fashion and film industries have interacted historically, and how fashion film has served the needs of both.
Our analysis of the filming, staging and choreographic techniques of historical fashion film will provide a resource for visual research for contemporary fashion image-makers. Fashion brands are increasingly embracing a range of non-fashion media and cultural projects in a quest to construct an 'overall brand vision' with a strong identity, and film has played a vital role in this. Our project will highlight that this kind of interaction has a history going back to the early 20th century.
2. The research will also impact on the practice of film archivists, and consequently researchers and educators who utilise archives. As a documentary and largely anonymous form of filmmaking, fashion film is often low priority in archival digitisation projects. Yet digitisation is key to preservation, access and dissemination. Our research will raise awareness of the importance of fashion film as a historical source and of its visual appeal. We will also share our contextual research with the BFI and other key international film collections, thereby enhancing the searchability and consequent accessibility of hitherto marginalised collections.
3. For public impact, the project draws on Uhlirova's previous experience of creating impact through the international Fashion in Film Festivals she inaugurated in 2006, and her contacts with prestigious partners, including Yale University and New York's Museum of the Moving Image. The touring exhibition, illustrated scholarly publications, public talks and panels, website and social media will generate increased public awareness of the fashion film in the context of the histories of 20th century fashion, cinema and media, contributing to a change in current public perceptions of the form as 'new'.
The project will also change perceptions of fashion exhibitions, in which film has traditionally been used merely to augment the exhibited objects, serving a documentary or supporting function. The exhibition will redress this by putting film centre stage. It will thus highlight film's historical importance in displaying fashion, and reframe it as a major cultural artefact in its own right.
Organisations
- University of the Arts London (Lead Research Organisation)
- British Film Institute (BFI) (Collaboration)
- UNIVERSITY OF WEST LONDON (Collaboration)
- British Film Institute (Project Partner)
- Moravian Gallery in Brno (Project Partner)
- AnOther Magazine (Project Partner)
- British Fashion Council (Project Partner)
- Somerset House (Project Partner)
Publications
Evans C
(2020)
Introduction: touch, click and motion: archaeologies of fashion film after digital culture
in Journal of Visual Culture
Ferreira L
(2021)
Danger in the Path of Chic - Violence in Fashion between the Wars
Ferreira L
(2019)
Archaeology of fashion film
in International Journal of Fashion Studies
Moyse Ferreira L
(2020)
Colour, movement and modernity in Sonia Delaunay's (1926) fashion film
in Journal of Visual Culture
Parikka J
(2019)
Beauty: A Logistical Imaginary
in Liverpool Biennial
Uhlirova M
(2020)
Excavating fashion film: a media archaeological perspective
in Journal of Visual Culture
Uhlirova M
(2022)
Maison Sonia Delaunay
Uhlirova M
(2021)
The Routledge Companion to Fashion Studies
Uhlirova M
(2022)
The Oxford Handbook of Film Theory
| Description | 1/ SIGNIFICANT NEW KNOWLEDGE The project was the first to theorise that fashion film was not a novel product of the digital age but a century-old form in which fashion and cinema (as two distinct industries and practices) converged. It raised scholarly awareness of an unknown history of fashion film dating back to the silent period. It drew attention to the significance of fashion film heritage today, when fashion, new media and film studies are rapidly expanding areas of academic enquiry, responding to new communications, technologies and subject domains. The project's extensive historical research in European and American film archives brought to light a wealth of film heritage, in some cases leading national archives to prioritise material found by the researchers for digital preservation (Eye, Amsterdam; Library of Congress, Washington DC). The breadth of research led to new historical insights, for example that silent fashion films were generally created by women for women, whereas later sound films established a dominant male spectatorial position that had hitherto been absent in the genre. 2/ IMPORTANT NEW RESEARCH QUESTIONS The project made some of this archival discovery the focus of interdisciplinary debates about both historical and contemporary fashion film. These debates combined the expertise of an interdisciplinary community of individuals who would not otherwise have met - fashion and film academics, industry professionals, curators and archivists. By applying the findings of the old to the new, and the new to the old, the project opened up new avenues for critical thinking about fashion film, including staging and cinematic techniques (including problems of colour), performance, audiences and reach. 3/ NEW METHODOLOGIES AND PRACTICES The methodology underpinning this project, media archaeology, allowed for an innovative, non-linear way of connecting the early 20th century with the early 21st. This bi-focal perspective challenged the idea that fashion film is a discrete film genre. Instead, the project identified fashion film across a range of genres (actualities, trick films, newsreels, advertising, industrial films, instructional films, home movies, documentaries, travel and ethnographic films, and animation), and various hybrids of those. This new, expanded definition of fashion film made it possible to analyse the importance of fashion across numerous distinct cinematic traditions, many of which have been systematically marginalised in cinema histories, and under-valued by archives themselves. Crucially for the project's methods, the researchers negotiated with many archives a permission to capture still frames from the vast majority of the films viewed. This data capture enabled a subsequent close visual comparison, analysis (and at times identification/attribution) of films not currently accessible digitally. This is a particularly important finding due to the inherent problems of the conservation and storage of historical film. The project established that a wealth of fashion film survives in all kinds of conditions, from excellent to severely damaged. |
| Exploitation Route | The project's academic findings can contribute both new knowledge and new methods to the fields of media studies, fashion studies, and film studies. In fashion studies, the project can contribute to the study of fashion media and communications, and it can provide a blueprint for new methods in fashion history by challenging orthodox linear chronologies. In the context of film studies, the project makes a case for the significance of non-fiction fashion film, traditionally neglected by a field which has hitherto largely focused on fashion and costume study in fiction film. The project can also contribute to media archaeology, by challenging its 'masculinism', with its focus on 'hard' technology, through its engagement with the traditionally 'feminine' domains of fashion and clothing. The project's non-academic methods and findings can contribute to the fashion industry, film archives, and the general public. In their interactions with fashion filmmakers, the researchers identified a hunger for further knowledge of the history of fashion film. The project outputs will thus provide creative and cultural benefits to filmmakers, commissioners and audiences. Bringing historical fashion film into the public eye will also benefit national and international film archives, creating new pathways for access to their collections and a new rationale to digitise their holdings in this emerging field of compelling public interest. |
| Sectors | Creative Economy,Culture, Heritage, Museums and Collections |
| Description | The project has impacted upon the following: 1. the fashion industry, especially the field of fashion communications; 2. film archives and film and fashion educators; and 3. the general public. 1. Fashion film is a burgeoning area of fashion media, transforming the industry's communications, and generating new cultural and commercial practices, endeavours and enterprises. All these have benefited from the project's research, which has addressed itself to a wide international community, revealing the significant roles played by film in fashion promotion and display prior to the digital era. The industry's hunger for new knowledge about fashion film is evidenced by the fact that, during the project's two-year run, the researchers were invited to curate five prestigious public film seasons, workshops and exhibitions incorporating new archival research and new knowledge (Venice, 2018; New York, 2018; Miami, 2019; Copenhagen, 2018; V&A Dundee, 2020). Most of these public displays incorporated the project's theoretical premise of juxtaposing the historical and the contemporary, to engender a new dialogue. The project team were also invited to give numerous international public talks, lectures and presentations (including Paris, 2018 and 2019; Moscow, 2019 and 2020; New York, 2018; and Toronto 2019) at which fashion industry professionals were present. Furthermore, one project team member was invited to be a jury member at two respected industry festivals that showcase and promote fashion filmmaking as a creative practice: Copenhagen Fashion Film (2018) and Bucharest Fashion Film Festival (2019). Through these varied platforms, the project developed strong links with leading industry organisations, with which it continues to be in conversation (including Nowness, SHOWstudio, the Metropolitan Museum of Art New York, and Harper's Bazaar). The research both involved and informed a number of contemporary fashion practitioners who had previously had little exposure to historical forms of fashion filmmaking. Several industry professionals who participated in the project workshops, conference and advisory board reported that they had gained new insights into the history of their discipline and how it informed the context for their own creative and commercial work. Of particular significance to them was the opportunity to be in dialogue with film and media scholars and archivists whose expertise changed their perspective on their own practice. Others reported a new understanding of the commercial realities of historical fashion film production, impacting on their own awareness of how they position their work between art and commerce. More broadly, the project has inspired a new kind of critical reflection about the practice of fashion filmmaking, in a context where industry festivals generally prioritise the nurture and celebration of creative practice over self-reflection. The practitioners involved in the project commented widely on how they had benefited from the opportunity for a sustained cultural critique, and in many cases this was evidenced in the creative work they subsequently produced. One of the more prestigious examples of this is Vitoria de Mello Franco's short film, Divinas (2018), created in direct response to the project's first workshop, and featured on Nowness (https://www.nowness.com/story/divinas-victoria-de-mello-franco). It was subsequently screened at the Miami Film Festival in 2018, followed by a panel discussion chaired by Christian Larsen, a design curator at the Metropolitan Museum of Art New York. A new sub-sector of the fashion industry has recently developed in the online publishing and retail sectors, resulting in professional opportunities for film editors and curators. There is an emerging need within the industry for the combined expertise and knowledge of fashion and fashion image-making on the one hand, and filmmaking on the other. The project's exhibitions, collaborative workshops, website and public talks have demonstrably raised awareness of fashion film as a historical form, generating a new debate about how the fashion and film industries have interacted historically, and how fashion film has served the needs of both. The project team's analysis of the filming, staging and choreographic techniques of historical fashion film (on the website, in public presentations, and forthcoming publications) provides an invaluable visual research resource for contemporary fashion image-makers and fashion brands. 2. The research has impacted on the practice of film archivists, as well as the researchers and educators who utilise archives. As a non-fiction and largely anonymous form of filmmaking, fashion film is often low priority in archival preservation or outreach projects, and non-fiction film curators frequently struggle to make a case for 'their' collections to be re-evaluated internally. By directly involving 14 international film archives in the research (considerably more than originally planned), and by commissioning new photography to be made directly from safety film stock, the project has raised awareness of the importance of fashion film as a historical source with a striking visual appeal. As a direct result of the research, several archives have put films 'discovered' by the project into their digitisation queues (Library of Congress, Washington; EYE Film Museum, Amsterdam; Lobster Films, Paris). The project team has also shared both specific film findings and contextual research with some of the film archives (BFI, London; Academy Film Archives, LA; EYE, Amsterdam; NFA Prague; Gaumont-Pathe, France), thereby enhancing the searchability and consequent accessibility of hitherto marginalised collections. 3. For public impact, the project has created a number of outputs and events. Apart from exhibitions and talks, the project's website disseminated the research thinking via accessible blog posts and short articles. The project's Instagram has attracted over 1500 followers and continues to be updated with new posts; its Twitter has just under 300 followers. While some of the public displays have been staged through a network of contacts previously established by Central Saint Martins' Fashion in Film Festival (New York's Museum of the Moving Image, Copenhagen Fashion Film Festival and Miami Film Festival), the project has also generated new networks, and new opportunities to collaborate, with new partners and venues (Palazzo Grassi, Venice; Bucharest Fashion Film Festival and V&A Dundee) that have an equally large public reach. As a result of these instances of public engagement, the project has generated prestigious press coverage internationally (see for example Briony Dixon, 'Dress Codes', Sight & Sound, August 2018; Peter Monaghan, 'Film Dresses Fashion, Fashion Drapes', Moving Image Archive News, February 2018; Clara Tosi Pamphili, 'Chi ha ragione: Gucci o Armani?', Artribune magazine, March-April, 2018; Sebastian T. Thorsted, 'Copenhagen Fashion Film Festival 2019: The Importance of History and Breaking the Rules', Metal Magazine, 2019; Natalie Theodosi, 'Fashion on Film', Women's Wear Daily, September 2019). As some of the project's collaborations have come through the Archaeology of Fashion Film's own website and Instagram, there is ample evidence that these online media have generated an increased public interest in historical fashion film, in the context of the histories of both 20th century fashion and cinema. The project has also contributed to changing debates about fashion exhibitions, in which film has traditionally been used merely to augment the exhibited objects, serving a documentary or supporting function. The project's presentations have redressed this by putting film centre stage, highlighting film's historical importance not only in displaying fashion, but as a major cultural artefact in its own right. |
| First Year Of Impact | 2018 |
| Sector | Creative Economy,Culture, Heritage, Museums and Collections |
| Impact Types | Cultural,Societal,Economic |
| Description | Funding for Layering: Fashion, Art, Cinema - in partnership with Miami Design District, Miami International Film Festival |
| Amount | $21,700 (USD) |
| Organisation | Dacra |
| Sector | Private |
| Country | United States |
| Start | |
| Description | Pinault Foundation Teatrino del Palazzo Grassi |
| Amount | £5,430 (GBP) |
| Organisation | Pinault Collection |
| Sector | Private |
| Country | Italy |
| Start | 12/2017 |
| End | 01/2018 |
| Description | Hidden Screen Industries Network |
| Organisation | British Film Institute (BFI) |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Charity/Non Profit |
| PI Contribution | I am part of an AHRC-funded research network titled Hidden Screen Industries Network, convened by Dr Emily Caston, Professor of Screen Industries / Director of Policy & Practice Research Institute of Screen and Music (PRISM), and Patrick Russell, Senior Curator (Non-Fiction) BFI National Archive. My role: I have given presentations, interviewed industry professionals, contributed knowledge to the discussions relating esp. to fashion film and advertising film. I have also contributed feedback to the AHRC research application, and more recently acted as advisor to the network organisers on a planned session investigating the relations between art and commerce within certain hidden screen industries (music video, fashion film, advertising). |
| Collaborator Contribution | The network brings together an international community of researchers, moving image curators and industry professionals working across multiple screen industries that rarely connect (a historically under-researched area of cinema and media studies), to do conceptual thinking on what 'hidden screen industries' are, to generate a new dialogue involving a diverse group of stakeholders, and to enable academics more access to film archives and screen industries. The idea is to stimulate conversation and collaboration amongst academics, curators, archivists and researchers. Proposed is a new framework for studying the UK's screen industries which includes sectors under-represented in scholarship and policy. The project will contribute to the AHRC Digital Transformations in the Arts and Humanities theme by exploring the curation and conservation of ephemeral digital screen industries and the question of identity and 'other' in culturally influential screen industries such as advertising. It also connects to the AHRC's Creative Industries Clusters' Programme and Creative Economy research, and has been designed to foster a new research agenda to contribute to these programmes of scholarship. The network extends over a period of 12 months from January 2022. Areas under investigation: advertising and branded content, music video, fashion film, corporate, government and third sector film, medical and educational film as well as sectors in the supply chain such as talent agencies. |
| Impact | n/a |
| Start Year | 2022 |
| Description | Hidden Screen Industries Network |
| Organisation | University of West London |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | I am part of an AHRC-funded research network titled Hidden Screen Industries Network, convened by Dr Emily Caston, Professor of Screen Industries / Director of Policy & Practice Research Institute of Screen and Music (PRISM), and Patrick Russell, Senior Curator (Non-Fiction) BFI National Archive. My role: I have given presentations, interviewed industry professionals, contributed knowledge to the discussions relating esp. to fashion film and advertising film. I have also contributed feedback to the AHRC research application, and more recently acted as advisor to the network organisers on a planned session investigating the relations between art and commerce within certain hidden screen industries (music video, fashion film, advertising). |
| Collaborator Contribution | The network brings together an international community of researchers, moving image curators and industry professionals working across multiple screen industries that rarely connect (a historically under-researched area of cinema and media studies), to do conceptual thinking on what 'hidden screen industries' are, to generate a new dialogue involving a diverse group of stakeholders, and to enable academics more access to film archives and screen industries. The idea is to stimulate conversation and collaboration amongst academics, curators, archivists and researchers. Proposed is a new framework for studying the UK's screen industries which includes sectors under-represented in scholarship and policy. The project will contribute to the AHRC Digital Transformations in the Arts and Humanities theme by exploring the curation and conservation of ephemeral digital screen industries and the question of identity and 'other' in culturally influential screen industries such as advertising. It also connects to the AHRC's Creative Industries Clusters' Programme and Creative Economy research, and has been designed to foster a new research agenda to contribute to these programmes of scholarship. The network extends over a period of 12 months from January 2022. Areas under investigation: advertising and branded content, music video, fashion film, corporate, government and third sector film, medical and educational film as well as sectors in the supply chain such as talent agencies. |
| Impact | n/a |
| Start Year | 2022 |
| Description | 10 anni del Fashion in Film Festival: screenings with introductory talks |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Held in the Teatrino di Palazzo Grassi in Venice on two consecutive evenings, this public programme of film screenings and talks showcased art, advertising and industry films from the silent period to the 1970s. Both events were fully attended in an auditorium seating 225 people, with extra visitors sitting on the floor of the aisles. The programme received significant coverage in the national Italian press (see entries for Vogue Italia, Corierre della Sera, La Repubblica and other press) and blogs, and was extensively featured in the local online listings and press. Curated and introduced by Marketa Uhlirova, it presented a wide context for today's fashion film, by reflecting on the interfaces between the worlds of fashion, cinema and art. It drew on, and featured, archival research conducted for the Archaeology of Fashion Film project, including a rare Sonia Delaunay film only recently discovered in a French film archive by the researchers. The first screening, The Enigma of Clothes, combined archival shorts from British Pathé and The Library of Congress with films by avant-garde artists and early filmmakers including Georges Méliès, Hans Richter, Man Ray, Kenneth Anger and Christine Noll Brinckmann, to celebrate the poetics of cinematic clothing. The second screening was the Italian premiere of The Inferno Unseen, a film exclusively composed of screen tests in preparation for Henri-Georges Clouzot's unfinished film The Inferno (1964). |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
| URL | http://www.palazzograssi.it/it/eventi/tutti/fashion-in-film-festival/ |
| Description | An illustrated talk "The spectacle of looking and conflicting desires" |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Postgraduate students |
| Results and Impact | If the gaze is where the act of looking collides with pleasure, knowledge, desire, discipline and power, who does the looking, and who is looked at, in the realm of fashion film? This talk focused on early 20th century fashion films, produced by companies such as Pathé, Gaumont and Charles Urban in Britain. It showed how these films mobilised not one but multiple spectatorial positions, and offered viewers multifarious pleasures and gains, whereby the desiring 'male gaze' was often distinctly marginalised. These were films explicitly directed at women and sometimes edited by women. They presented mostly women on the screen, and women were also largely assumed to be their core audience - something that was continuously reinforced not only by the surrounding discourses but also by the films' own 'choreographies' of looking. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2019 |
| URL | http://hicsa.univ-paris1.fr/documents/pdf/CIRHAC/FASHION_THE%20GAZE.pdf |
| Description | Archaeology of Fashion Film Conference - 6 July 2018 |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | The project's conference, Archaeology of Fashion Film, took place in July and brought together a cadre of fantastic speakers across multiple disciplines while also involving industry voices. The task of the conference day was to see how media archaeology becomes not only one tightly defined methodology but a manner of asking questions that probe the early 20th century context of fashion film and the more recent versions of digital culture that have also witnessed fashion moving into small screens and the data-intensive environments of social media. In this sense, our interest in archaeologies of cinema and the digital culture of fashion became a vehicle for thematic and methodological discussions. A case in point was the keynote by Wanda Strauven that tracked alternative ways of viewing the media archaeology of fashion film with an eye to the parallel histories of textile materials and film. This also demonstrated that there's more in fashion film than visual culture, and connected it with longer traditions of the digital in textile work such as weaving, stitching, and knitting. Team members Parikka and Evans began the day with an introduction to the project and approach. Strauven opened the discussion to the wider material contexts of film and digital culture, and the talks throughout the day had fruitful angles to what the cinematic in fashion film is. From the industry panel organised with Nowness and hosted by Marketa Uhlirova (team member) with contemporary filmmakers Stella Scott and Isaac Lock and creative director Raven Smith, to talks such as by Beatrice Behlen, curator at Museum of London, which with a meticulous eye for close-reading investigated a 1918 British Pathé film from the perspectives of its historical context and material movement of garments: "floating chiffon and misty tulle". Nick Rees-Roberts' talk drew from his just-released book Fashion Film, and tied together many of the angles of the day: what is fashion film as this hybrid of a genre, a practice, and a technological horizon that moves between art and commerce? What is the right vocabulary and critical angle to discuss its particular status in contemporary digital culture of social media, where the post-cinematic angle of fashion film becomes further emphasised? These questions were also discussed in the final plenary conversation hosted by professor Chris Breward. A further important aspect to the day were actual films. Lucy Moyse Ferreira (team member) introduced and curated a glimpse of fashion film old and new in a way that spoke again to our media archaeological idea of trying to create a parallax view of the topic. Instead of linear histories of how fashion film has developed, the Archaeology of Fashion Film conference day ended then with a rich set of ideas about how the legacy of film is part of current concerns in filmmaking, and which parts of the current commerce of fashion - and its important infrastructural context in digital platforms - have shifted some of the concerns in ways that demand us to investigate both the new in the old, and the old in the new, to borrow Siegfried Zielinski's ideas about how media archaeology can provide alternative ways to media cultural analysis. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
| URL | http://www.archfashfilm.arts.ac.uk/category/conference/ |
| Description | Archaeology of Fashion Film Workshops 2-5 |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | This two-day workshop on 21-22 March 2018 was a follow-up activity to a half-day workshop previously held at the British Film Institute in November 2017. Held at Central Saint Martins (day 1) and British Film Institute (day 2), it brought together a diverse group of 24 participants from fields including fashion and cinema history and theory, fashion and film curation and contemporary image making and contents management. The aim was to explore a range of historical and contemporary films that may be considered within (or just outside) the umbrella concept of 'fashion film'. The selection of films shown on day one emphasised a deliberate confrontation of historical and contemporary material, contrasting moving image cultures during two periods of major technological and cultural transformation: the era coinciding with silent cinema (1890s-1930) and the contemporary era. We showed 76 short films and film excerpts in total, compiled by Uhlirova in collaboration with the following international film archives: British Film Institute; EYE Film Museum Amsterdam; Archives francaises du film, CNC; Lobster Films, Paris; Gaumont Pathe Archives and National Film Archive, Czech Republic. The two days were structured into eight sessions, each of which discussed films in relation to particular genres, concerns, themes and questions, which included: advertising, process film, filming conventions. The project team proposed a working definition of 'fashion film' to mean short, presentational, largely non-narrative films dedicated to the display and promotion of fashion but certain genres of film were included to test the boundary of fashion film (such as ethnographic film, 'costume' film etc.). The themes discussed included: filming fashion film, settings and mise-en-scenes, performance, movement, choreography and gestures, the use and different effects of colour technologies; advertising and promotion. The participation of contemporary image makers and fashion industry professionals (especially on day 1) proved vital in attuning to the realities of moving image production, circulation and consumption within and beyond the fashion industry today. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
| URL | http://www.archfashfilm.arts.ac.uk/workshops/archaeology-of-fashion-film-workshop |
| Description | Archaeology of Fashion Film project Instagram account |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Engagement focused website, blog or social media channel |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | The project's Instagram account, run by Moyse Ferreira with Uhlirova, posts 3 (largely moving) images per week that reflect the project's research. This has opened up our archival findings - which would not otherwise be accessible - to the public, as well as displaying a curation of seminal contemporary examples of fashion film. This has proven successful in terms of impact, with over 1380 international followers to date, including key industry figures. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017,2018,2019 |
| URL | https://www.instagram.com/archfashfilm |
| Description | Archaeology of Fashion Film project website |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Engagement focused website, blog or social media channel |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Moyse Ferreira and Uhlirova worked with a professional designer to put together a website to represent the project, record activities, and engage with the wider public about our activities, events, research and findings. For example, here we communicated news about our project conference and allowed members of the public to book free tickets to attend, and similarly after the event, have uploaded content from the day which can be accessed by anybody, opening the papers up to those who could not attend on the day. It features regular blog posts that keep the audience up to date with the project's development. It also features a range of archival findings - still and moving image - which would not otherwise be accessible to the public. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
| URL | http://www.archfashfilm.arts.ac.uk |
| Description | Article by Antonella Catena in Il Corriere della Sera (national newspaper) digital edition 11 January 2018 |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A press release, press conference or response to a media enquiry/interview |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Enthusiastic article in a national newspaper which includes booking details for the forthcoming Celebration of Ten Years of the Fashion in Film Festival and Fashion Aperture workshops at Teatrino di Palazzo Grassi in Venice. The article highlights specific films and describes the event as 'three days of fashion, cinema and art'. It also highlights that the project is a collaboration between the Pinault Collection in Venice, the Fashion in Film Festival and Central Saint Martins in London, and IUAV University of Venice in Italy. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
| URL | http://www.amica.it/2018/01/11/fashion-in-film-festival-fashion-aperture-a-venezia/?refresh_ce-cp |
| Description | Article by Federico Biserni for La Repubblica (national newspaper) 13 February 2018 |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A press release, press conference or response to a media enquiry/interview |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Interview dated 13 February 2018 in in the digital edition of an Italian national newspaper, La Repubblica, with Profs Caroline Evans (CSM London) and Alessandra Vaccari (IUAV University of Venice) about their 3-day 'Fashion Aperture' workshops at Teatrino di Palazzo Grassi in January 2018. Called 'In Search of the Fashion Film: from Lucile in 1913 to Luca Guardagnino' the article examines the several reasons for the development of fashion film from the early 20th century to the 21st, themes which are central to the Archaeology of Fashion Film research project. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
| URL | http://d.repubblica.it/moda/2018/02/13/news/cosa_e_il_fashion_film_luca_guadagnino-3850301/ |
| Description | Article by Federico Biserni for La Repubblica (national newspaper) 18 January 2018 |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A press release, press conference or response to a media enquiry/interview |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Article in online edition of national newspaper promoting the forthcoming 3-day Celebration of Ten years of the Fashion in Film Festival and fashion Aperture workshops at Teatrino di Palazzo Grassi in Venice, outlining the key themes and events programmed for 24-26 January 2018. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
| URL | https://d.repubblica.it/moda/2018/01/18/news/fashion_in_film_festival_venezia_palazzo_grassi-3824586... |
| Description | Article by Nicoletta Spolini in Vogue Italia online 25 January 2018 |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A press release, press conference or response to a media enquiry/interview |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Article in digital edition of Italian Vogue on the celebration at Teatrino di Palazzo Grassi on 24-26 January 2018 of Ten Years of the Fashion in Film Festival, focusing on the curation of the evening film programmes by Marketa Uhlirova, including the screening of a rare Sonia Delaunay film discovered during research for the Archaeology of Fashion Film project and the first Italian screening of Uhlirova's 'Inferno Unseen' collaboration. Uhlirova is interviewed about the nature of fashion film, and the article also covers the three afternoon student workshops organised by Alessandra Vaccari and Caroline Evans, 'Fashion Aperture: Fashion Designers and the Moving Image', which included film programming and in-conversations with Italian designer Nanni Strada and film curator Marketa Uhlirova. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
| URL | http://www.vogue.it/vogue-talents/video-lab/2018/01/25/fashion-in-film-festival-london-10-anni-venic... |
| Description | Article for Artribune.com (website) on 15 January 2018 |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Engagement focused website, blog or social media channel |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Two-paragraph article in a major Italian art and culture website on the forthcoming Fashion in Film Festival programme and Fashion Aperture workshops at Teatrino di Palazzo Grassi on 24-26 January 2018. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
| URL | http://www.artribune.com/television/2018/01/video-moda-cinema-arte-proiezioni-palazzo-grassi-venezia... |
| Description | Blog post on contessanally.com on 31 January 2018 |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Engagement focused website, blog or social media channel |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | This English-language blog post focuses on two aspects of the Fashion in Film Festival and Fashion Aperture events at Teatrino di Palazzo Grassi on 24-26 January 2018. Firstly, the participation of fashion designer Nanni Strada and the screening of her 1970s film Il Manto e La Pelle in one of the workshops created and organized by Alessandra Vaccari, Iuav University of Venice, and Caroline Evans, Central Saint Martins College, University of the Arts London. Secondly, the screening of The Inferno Unseen ( a new cut of the original rushes of Henri-Georges Clouzot's 1964 film The Inferno), a collaboration between Marketa Uhlirova of Fashion in Film, MUBI and Lobster Films, which the blog describes as a series of kinetic and optical experiments set against a newly-commissioned live electronic score by Rollo Smallcombe. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
| URL | http://contessanally.blogspot.co.uk/2018/01/ |
| Description | Chi ha ragione: Gucci o Armani? Article in Artribune magazine, no 42, March 2018, pp. 94-5. |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A press release, press conference or response to a media enquiry/interview |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | This interview for Italian (print) magazine Artribune originated on the occasion of the Fashion in Film Festival's 10th anniversary programme and a joint programme of workshops organised by IUAV Venice's Alessandra Vaccari and CSM's Caroline Evans, both at Palazzo Grassi, Venice. Uhlirova was interviewed by Clara Tosi Pamphili about curating film programmes that explore the relations between fashion in cinema and about the complex intersections between fashion and cinema. In the interview Uhlirova explains what motivates her research, stresses the importance of the film archive as a privileged site for researchers and outlines the long history of fashion in cinema that goes back to earliest films of the mid-1890s. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
| URL | http://www.artribune.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/artribune-magazine-42-marzo-aprile-2018.pdf |
| Description | Colour in Fashion Film: The Skin and Screen of the World |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Industry/Business |
| Results and Impact | Conference presentation given by Lucy Moyse Ferreira on 10 July 2019 at the 'Global Colour and the Moving Image' conference, University of Bristol. The audience reported that the paper opened up a new way of approaching film studies by using a fashion/art history methodological approach. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2019 |
| Description | Copenhagen Fashion Film Jury 2019 |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Industry/Business |
| Results and Impact | Marketa Uhlirova was invited to be on the jury for the 8th edition of Copenhagen Fashion Film Festival, alongside other industry professionals including Louise Damgaard, Else Skjold and Mads Nørgaard. The jury selected winners in three categories. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2019 |
| URL | http://copenhagenfashionfilm.dk/copenhagen-fashion-film-jury-2019/ |
| Description | Digital Fashion Film Today: A Hidden Screen History? |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Industry/Business |
| Results and Impact | Uhlirova moderated an open-access panel discussion at BFI Southbank, interviewing Shelley Jones (ex-Nowness, now Park Pictures) and UAL alumna Rachel Flemminger-Hudson about fashion film and the emerging industry and institutions around it. This was part of the AHRC-funded research network Hidden Screen Industries, convened by Emily Caston (Professor of Screen Industries / Director of Policy & Practice Research Institute of Screen and Music (PRISM)), and Patrick Russell, (Senior Curator, Non-Fiction, BFI National Archive). The network brought together an international community of researchers, moving image curators and industry professionals working across multiple screen industries that rarely connect (a historically under-researched area of cinema and media studies), to do conceptual thinking on what 'hidden screen industries' are, to generate a new dialogue involving a diverse group of stakeholders, and to enable academics more access to film archives and screen industries. Areas under investigation were in some cases related to my own interests and included: advertising and branded content, music video, fashion film, corporate film and educational film. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2023 |
| Description | Fashion Aperture: Fashion designers and the moving image |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Postgraduate students |
| Results and Impact | 100 fashion students from IUAV University of Venice attended three afternoon workshops and film screenings held at the Teatrino di Palazzo Grassi, Venice, and co-organised and chaired by Prof Caroline Evans of Central Saint Martins (London) and Prof Alessandra Vaccari of IUAV. The workshops ran in tandem with 10 Years of the Fashion in Film Festival at the same venue, curated by Marketa Uhlirova. They received extensive coverage in the Italian national press and in local listings and press. The first workshop began with a carefully selected programme of rare, historical film from archives not usually accessible to the students. During and after the screenings, the students asked questions and discussed the creative possibilities that film offers designers, and the various applications of the medium to their field. The second workshop was an in-conversation with the designer Nanni Strada, followed by a screening of her 1973 fashion film The Mantle and the Skin that she made when involved in the radical design scene of 1970s Italy. Students benefited from the opportunity to ask her direct questions and examine close-up some designs she had brought from her personal archive. The third workshop was a in-conversation with Marketa Uhlirova, founder of the Fashion in Film Festival and co-Investigator with Evans on the Archaeology of Fashion Film project. It explored different ways of conceptualising the intersections between the moving image, fashion, and costume. It offered the students a rare glimpse of how to work in film archives to rediscover lost and rarely-seen films, and how to programme and create imaginative curatorial frameworks that cast film works in a new light so as to bring them to new audiences. Students reported verbally that they found all three workshops stimulating and thought-provoking; a few subsequently wrote short essays containing their observations and responses. These were of great interest and value to the organisers. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
| URL | http://www.palazzograssi.it/it/eventi/tutti/fashion-aperture/ |
| Description | Fashion Film & Media Archaeology |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Postgraduate students |
| Results and Impact | Research seminar at The New School Parsons Paris, France. Evans and Uhlirova presented research in progress on the Archaeology of Fashion Film project. The talk introduced the notion of 'parallax histories' (Thomas Elsaesser) and elaborated on how early cinema, as well as first fashion films, may be used as a template for considering digital fashion film - and vice versa. The talk also highlighted numerous corresponding features of fashion films from early 20th and early 21st centuries (formats, conventions of staging, filming, etc.). Prof. Nick Rees-Roberts of the Université Paris III, Sorbonne Nouvelle, gave a response highlighting certain questions for future study derived from cultural studies perspectives, such as gender, power and the economy. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
| URL | https://blogs.newschool.edu/parsons-paris/2018/05/22/fashion-theory-seminar-archaeology-of-fashion-f... |
| Description | Fashion and Film: A Parallax View - symposium11 - 50 |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Other audiences |
| Results and Impact | On 24 January 2019, this symposium showcased some of the project's research and featured talks from the team and colleagues at Winchester School of Art, where the event was held. Reflecting the project's approach, it drew on film and fashions studies, cultural history, media archaeology and critical theory to investigate the ways fashion and film have been entangled, from early cinema to more recent audiovisual work. From archival research on Sonia Delaunay's 1927 fashion film to methodologies of curating fashion film, themes of fashion and glamour in "Rome, Open City" to symbolic meanings of the bra in postcolonial India (through Satyajit Ray's The Big City), the talks showed how various links between fashion, clothing and the moving image are excavated through historical and critical methodologies. Hence, to investigate the parallax view, to cite Thomas Elsaesser's idea, meant, in this context, not only to read the periods of early cinema and contemporary fashion film in parallel but also to consider the parallax methodologies of fashion studies and film. This also raised the question what fashion studies can offer media archaeology of cinema, and vice versa. The event was opened and introduced by Jussi Parikka (CI), and included Caroline Evans (PI) with a talk on 'Turning Bodies, Turning Tables'; Louis Bayman (Southampton) and Lipi Begum (Southampton): 'From Made in Italy to New India: Fashion, neorealism and 20th century nationhood'; Lucy Moyse Ferreira (post-doc): 'Forgotten Fashion in the Film Archive: Sonia Delaunay's c.1927 Film Debut'; and Marketa Uhlirova (CI): 'Fashion Film: An Archaeology of Looking.'Audience reported change in views, opinions or behaviours |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2019 |
| URL | https://www.southampton.ac.uk/amt/news/events/2019/01/fashionfilm.page |
| Description | Fashion: the Fabric of Time |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | This talk was part of a fashion in film season titled Wearing Time: Past, Present, Future, Dream at Museum of the Moving Image, New York, co-curated by Uhlirova and leading film historian Tom Gunning. In the talk Uhlirova brought together artist and fashion films to explore time as an essential concept to both fashion and cinema, while also highlighting the prominence of fashion as a major theme in artistic work. The films offered contrasting perspectives on the subject of time, from recordings of the manufacturing process to explorations of fashion chronologies, metamorphoses and fantasy, to moments when dress and artifice come to embody the texture of time. The talk featured films and film excerpts by Robert Beavers, Christine Noll Brinckmann, Cindy Sherman, Lernert & Sander, Werner Dressler, Pathe and Gaumont companies. The most important impact was to challenge the usual compartmentalisation of fashion and artist film in programming and criticism; and to highlight the importance of fashion as a subject in cinema and artist moving image. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
| URL | http://www.movingimage.us/visit/calendar/2018/04/08/detail/marketa-uhlirova-talk-fashion-the-fabric-... |
| Description | Film Festival Season 'Layering: Fashion, Art, Cinema' |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | A three-day festival season featuring film screenings, talks and panels that explored creative affinities between fashion, cinema and art, held on 8-10 March 2019, in partnership with the Fashion in Film Festival, Miami International Film Festival, and the Miami Design District. It highlighted a range of poetic sensibilities in showing dress and the adorned body in motion. It featured artist, avant-garde and underground cinema with early advertising and documentary films, as well as contemporary fashion films, drawing on and showcasing the Archaeology of Fashion Film project's research. With shorts by major artists, designers, filmmakers and image-makers, including Sonia Delaunay, José Rodriguez Soltero, Nick Knight, John Maybury, Charles Atlas, Iris van Herpen, Mat Maitland, Nino Oxilia and Jacques Baratier shown alongside anonymous works, the festival presented an intricate spectrum of creative approaches and encounters. The programme was curated by Marketa Uhlirova (co-investigator on the project) with assistant curator Caitlin Storrie, and featured guest speakers Tom Gunning, Eugenia Paulicelli, Christian Larsen, and Vitoria de Mello Franco (whose featured film, Divinas, was produced in response to an earlier project workshop). Lucy Moyse Ferreira (post-doc) contributed a programme note on Jacques Baratier's 1964 film, Eves futures. Further funding was received for the event: the university received $21,700+VAT (please see entry under further funding). |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2019 |
| URL | https://2019.miamifilmfestival.com/program/ |
| Description | Fourth International Conference Colour in Film - 'The Aesthetic of Opulence: Channeling Colour and Darkness in Early Costume and Fashion Film |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Industry/Business |
| Results and Impact | Talk given by Marketa Uhlirova on 26 February 2019. It considered both colour and darkness by linking 'fashion films' of the 1910s and 20s to earlier 'costume films' of the 1890s-1900s and, more broadly, certain visual spectacles of the popular stage of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. With a particular reference to Ivo Osolsobe's term 'the aesthetic of opulence',it also highlighted some changes in discourses about 'fantastical' and 'natural' functions of colour in films that foreground dress. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2019 |
| URL | http://colour-in-film.net/program |
| Description | Interview and article in Moving Image Archive News (website) |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Engagement focused website, blog or social media channel |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Marketa Uhlirova was interviewed by Peter Monaghan for the website Moving Image Archive News reporting on activity related to film archives globally. The article, titled Film Dresses Fashion, Fashion Drapes Film, focuses primarily on Uhlirova's approach to curating the Fashion in Film Festival but it also profiles her collaboration with Evans and others on Archaeology of Fashion Film, and outlines many of the themes that significantly inform the project's research questions. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
| URL | http://www.movingimagearchivenews.org/film-dresses-fashion-fashion-drapes-film/ |
| Description | Interview for 'Costume dramas: why fashion on film is having a moment' by Ana Kinsella |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A press release, press conference or response to a media enquiry/interview |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Uhlirova was interviewed by fashion journalist Ana Kinsella about the reasons for contemporary cinema's attraction to fashion as a major subject matter, which, the article argues, is currently having a momentum in the form of the fashion documentary. Uhlirova also comments on fashion's dramatic potential for cinematic storytelling. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
| URL | https://www.theguardian.com/film/2018/feb/06/fashion-on-film-is-having-a-moment-phantom-thread |
| Description | Interview for 'Viva the diva: inside the fashion documentary boom' by Lou Stoppard, FINANCIAL TIMES |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A press release, press conference or response to a media enquiry/interview |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Undergraduate students |
| Results and Impact | Uhlirova was interviewed by journalist Lou Stoppard for her article about the recent trend in fashion documentaries. The emphasis of the interview was on the historical aspect of fashion documentaries. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2019 |
| URL | https://www.ft.com/content/fdf51a72-496a-11e8-8c77-ff51caedcde6 |
| Description | Interview for an international fashion student-focused magazine |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A press release, press conference or response to a media enquiry/interview |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Media (as a channel to the public) |
| Results and Impact | Uhlirova was interviewed by 1 Granary (Natassa Stamouli) for the article 'MARKETA UHLIROVA: THE CO-FOUNDER OF FASHION IN FILM FESTIVAL SHARES HER ADVICE FOR ASPIRING FASHION RESEARCHERS', published 25 January 2021. In the interview Uhlirova discusses her academic background, curatorial career, opinions and ideas about the importance of understanding fashion film. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
| URL | https://1granary.com/interviews/critics/marketa-uhlirova-the-co-founder-of-fashion-in-film-festival-... |
| Description | Panel: Cinema of Splendour / Fashion & Film |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Uhlirova was one of the featured speakers on a panel about costume and fashion in cinema at the 71st International Film Festival Mannheim-Heidelberg (Germany). The panel, part of a special festival season 'Cinema of Splendour' dedicated to costume and fashion in cinema, was moderated by Hannes Wesselkämper (Filmuniversität Babelsberg) and also included costume designer Esther Walz and the film season curator Hannes Brühwiler. Event blurb: "Fashion and costumes play an important role in shaping the look of any film. The clothing and this look of the film are an art form in its own right. Fashion has an impact on film, and film, in turn, has an impact on fashion. They mutually influence one another. The further back films look into the past, the more the protagonists' clothes represent an overlap between the time when the film was made and when it is set. And, like fashion, film costumes are also subject to historical change. The panel discussion will explore these and other facets of the topic." |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
| URL | https://www.iffmh.de/festival/special-events/panel-cinema-of-splendour---fashion-amp-film/index_eng.... |
| Description | Silent Film Historiography Conference, University of Leeds, 'Forgotten Fashion in the Silent Film Archive: Sonia Delaunay's c.1927 Film Debut' |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | On 19 September 2018, Lucy Moyse Ferreira gave a 20 minute paper based on a film uncovered through the project's archival research, produced by Sonia Delaunay in c.1927. She explained its significance in relation to Delaunay's oeuvre, the wider social context, and the history of colour film. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
| URL | https://silentfilmhist2018.wordpress.com |
| Description | Student project |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Undergraduate students |
| Results and Impact | 11 BA and MA Fashion Communications students at CSM (Central Saint Martins) were briefed to create a fashion film reflecting on the film they saw in Workshop 1 of the AFF (Archaeology of Fashion Film) project at London's British Film Institute in November 2017. In February 2018 they presented their films to the tutors, which were very well received and some of which will be screened on the project website and at the project conference in July 2018. This output brought academic learning and research into contact in mutually beneficial ways. The students' responses to the project were very positive and their CSM tutor also reported that the project had benefited the course in important ways. From the beginning, the students had commented favourably on two aspects of the workshop in particular: seeing silent fashion film for the first time and learning about its origins; and listening to the discussion between fashion industry professionals, academics and film curators. The project brief encouraged the students to respond in any way they wanted to the workshop films, from making purely visual comparisons to reflecting on underlying differences in historical and contemporary film conventions. Over a three-month period, they had tutorials and crits with Raven Smith (ex-commissioning director for the digital film channel NOWNESS), their CSM tutor Claire Robertson, and two members of the AFF team: Marketa Uhlirova and Caroline Evans. Their films ranged far and wide in approach, from ethnographic to fictional treatments of fashion. Having to show them on a big screen in a lecture theatre exposed them to a cinematic experience that was new to them. The project also gave the students the opportunity to reflect not only on filmic techniques but also on the context for their work. From both the discussions and the films they made, it emerged that they were critical of brand-driven film, and not afraid to make highly personal and so-called unpolished work. From the point of view of the project team, we benefited from getting a fresh take on our historical material, and seeing how a new generation filmmakers responded creatively to it. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017,2018 |
| Description | The Aesthetic of Opulence in Early Cinema's Costume and Fashion Films |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Uhlirova gave a talk for Copenhagen Fashion Film. Focusing on issues of colour, metamorphosis, staging, perception and visual abundance, the film talk simultaneously connected and set apart early cinema's 'costume spectacles' (produced between mid-1890s and 1910) and later 'fashion films', as they began to be regularly distributed by companies like Pathé Frères and Gaumont in the following two decades. The talk highlighted the shifts that took place between discourses of the marvellous and fantastic on the one hand, and the natural and authentic on the other. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2019 |
| URL | http://www.copenhagenfashionfilm.dk/2019/programme/talk-x-early-cinemas-costume-fashion-films/ |
| Description | Via?a mea în filme (My Life in Film) Harper's Bazaar Romania |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A press release, press conference or response to a media enquiry/interview |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Industry/Business |
| Results and Impact | Uhlirova was interviewed by Ioana Chira for her article 'Marketa Uhlirova: Via?a mea în filme' in Harper's Bazaar Romania, on the occasion of being on the jury of Bucharest Fashion Film Festival. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2019 |
| URL | https://www.harpersbazaar.ro/marketa-uhlirova-viata-mea-in-filme/ |
| Description | Workshop 1, BFI, on 8 Nov 2017 |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | 27 participants attended a workshop that we organised at the British Film Institute (BFI) as the first of five workshops in the Archaeology of Fashion Film project. There, we screened a selection of fashion film footage from both the BFI's and our own collections, which comprised 14 short films/clips. Lively discussions developed in response to the footage, comparing this early fashion film to industry practices today, and debating its relevance. Most attendees had never seen such footage (or knew it existed) previously, and expressed both their great interest in being able to see it, and the realisations it provoked regarding current industry work today. TOPICS DISCUSSED History of modern fashion film, silent film, similarities and differences between historical and contemporary fashion films, media archaeology, viewing conditions for first film, early film as a new medium, filmic conventions, purpose of filmed fashion, modelling styles and rotating of models, stasis vs motion, use of colour. BENEFIT TO PROJECT 1. Attendees collectively agreed it was extremely useful as industry practitioners to view their own history, and it was predominately the first opportunity they were able to do so. 2. Allowed the project team to begin thorough research in BFI database (and others). 3. Gave project team wide range of insights, enriching project and shaping its subsequent direction. 4. Produced extensive high quality discussion which will feed into later publication. 5. Opportunity to create interface between teaching and research through the student project. Very positive feedback and contribution from students. PARTICIPANTS The 28 workshop participants comprised: the project team of four; twelve fashion film industry professionals, academics, and creatives; and eleven CSM students from BA and MA Fashion Communication and their tutor Claire Robertson. INDUSTRY PROFESSIONALS, ARCHIVISTS AND ACADEMICS 1. Sally Anne Bolton, Fashion Editor and Consultant 2. Jo Botting, Curator of Fiction Film, BFI 3. Claire Smith, Curator, Special Collections Team, BFI 4. Emily Caston, Professor and Director of the Creative Industries Research Centre, University of West London 5. Calvin Chinthaka, Fashion Filmmaker and Photographer 6. Kathryn Ferguson, Film Director, Selfridges Resident Film Director & Fashion Film Research Fellow 7. George Harvey, Fashion & Beauty Director & Photographer 8. Holly Hay, Freelance Photographic Editor 9. Pamela Hutchinson, Freelance Journalist and Silent Cinema Blogger 10. Nikola Mijovic, Lecturer in Cultural and Historical Studies, University of the Arts London 11. Eda Sancakdar Onikinci, PhD student, Winchester School of Art, University of Southampton 12. Raven Smith, Freelance Creative Director. STUDENTS Peng Qin, Lea Sorli, Sangwha Yim, Azra Sudetic, Vitoria Von Lachmann De Mello Franco, Reid Calvert, Julie Greve, Sahil Babbar, Mila van der Linden, Dean Hoy, Reece Sweeney. 35 MM FILM WATCHED 1. Paris Fashion Creations of the Bon Marché, 1910 2. Beautiful Summer Toilettes from Paris, 1911 3. Hairstyles at Decou, 1911 4. Paris Fashion in Colour Afternoon Toilettes, 1911 5. Ladies Costumes Through the Ages, 1911 6. Paris Fashions at the Piano, 1911 7. Paris Fashion. Latest creations in gowns of the House Raudnitz, 1922 8. Paris fashion in Advance, 1925 9. Eve's Review, 1929 DIGITAL FOOTAGE WATCHED 1. Greta Garbo as Mannequin, 1910 2. De Mode te Parijs ('Parisian Modes in Colour'), 1920 3. Technicolor Fashion Parade, 1927 4. Paramountjournalen 52, November 1928 5. Frivolités, 1929 minutes |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |